LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



®]^a{t.^I.. iaptii'irj^l :|o 

Shelf ..._....i: ■ 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



LYRICS. 



Fjelda, The Great Bridge, In the Happy Summer 
Time, Etc. 



Thou who stealest fire 
From the fountains of the past 
To glorify the present,— * * * * 
********** 
My friend, with thee to live alone 
Were how much better than to own 
A crown, a scepter and a throne ! 

—Tennyson. 



JOSEPH HUDSON YOUNG. 

^"^ ^ .-/RIGHT ^^J 

( !Vi'H^ 171889 (,' 



FUNK & WAGNALLS 
NEW YORK : LONDON : 

1889 
18 AND 20 ASTOR PLACE. 44 FLEET STREET. 

All Rights Reserved. 



T'S3 



344- 



Y^1 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1889, by 
FUNK & WAGNALLS, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. U. 



FUNK & WAGNALLS, 
18 and 20 Aster Place, 

NEW YOKE. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

The Great Bridge, ....-..•• '^ 

The Arctic Heroes, - • • ^^ 

The Storm, , , . • 1- 

The Augury, 

Beyond, ' ^ 

A Dead Love ^' 

Amor Creator Deus, ^^ 

Hope . - • • ^- 

OQ 

Bereft . . . ^o 

Of; 

Can I Forget, 

27 
January, • ■ ■ 

oo 

February , . • • 

March, 29 

APRIL, . .....••• so 

MAY, ...-....••• ^^ 

33 
June 

. 33 
July, 

34 
August, 

35 
September, 

. • • 36 

October, 

. . 37 

JsOVEMBER, 

38 
December, 

. ^J 
Athanasia, 

Hero's Lament, 

. 43 
Orion, 



CONTENTS. 

PAGB 

My Ship Come In, 46 

A Reverie, 48 

In the Happy Summek Time, 53 

Kemembrance, 55 

Ode IV., Book I., Horace 57 

Ode VII., Book I., Horace, ....... 59 

Liberty, 61 

Percy Bysshe Shelley, 66 

Lilian Adelaide Neilson, 68 

Westchester — Idyl, 70 

Frederick HI., 77 

Harry Brandon, 78 

Edward M'Glynn, 79 

The Miserly Millionaire, 80 

Spring, 81 

The New and Vulgar Rich, 82 

Miss Clara St. Clair and Her Millio^saiue, . . . .85 

The Mescal op Montezuma, 89 

TouNG Taloung, 93 

My Lover True, 96 

liOVE's Anchorite, 98 

The Poet and the Bird, 100 

Forever and Forever, . 103 

"No," 104 

The Autumn Flight, 106 

Fjelda, 110 

The Maid of Rome, 114 

The Wreck, 124 



INVOCATION. 




O whom, to whom 

Shall my hand inscribe this book ? 

To the spirit of the brook, 

Of the brook that ever goeth ; 

To the spirit of the wind. 

Of the wind that bloweth, bloweth ; 

To the spirit of the sea, 
Of the sea that ever iioweth ; 

To ye, yes, to ye, 

Ye earth-encircling three ; 

To these, ay, to these — 

The rivers, winds and seas. 
Will the poet's hand inscribe the poet's book. 

Blow it, blow it everywhere. 

Breezes of the boundless air ; 

Rills and rivers, bear it on, 

From the country to the town. 

From the city back again — 
My book, oh, bear it, rills and rivers. 
To and fro, until it quivers. 
Flying, like a weaver's shuttle, through the minds of men. 



INVOCATION. 

And thou, O mighty sea, 
Still bear it back to me ; 
The poet's bread upon thy waters thrown — 
Oh, give him back his own, 

O loyal friend ! O true 

And tender sweetheart, you, 
O heart, forever loyal, true, and tender ! 
The poet's heart of hearts is only thine, 
Round which his love's full-clustering passion-vine, 
Purple and green, doth creep and cling and twine. 

Wherever thou dost bide. 

The river, wind and tide 
Shall tell thee this : that, in the gathering gloom, 
O loyal friend, O sweetheart true and tender, 

The poet's thought 

With thee is fraught ; 
His darkness lighted with thy soft eyes' splendor ; 
While round thy head, one with thy radiant hair, 

Like the bright star, Altair, 

Shineth the aureole 

Of a sweet, childlike soul. 




THE GREAT BRIDGE. 

WRITTEN FOR THE OPENING DAY 

HEN Earth was young, 

The breasts she offered to her human child, 
Deserts of chaos, floods and forests wild 

Were hid among. 
A foundling flung 
From mystery 
To history, — 
A wanderer fate -impelled, 
Her savage heart rebelled 
To own the hapless thing 
Of dust and ashes. Sing, 
^e Muses nine, whose forms seraphic stand 
Luminous on the far, horizon land 
Of setting ages, in the twilight dim 
Of fading eras, sing, ay, sing of him — 
Creation's slave and conquering lord. 
A newer song than arms afford 
Those deeds inspire, which, in the march of mind, 
Crossing wide seas vast wildernesses find, 

And leave a monumental world behind. 

5 



LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

Clio, th}^ sounding lyre 
Too long has found an echo where the wings 
Of ruin- haunting creatures stir the air 
That vibrates to the music of thy strings,- 

Kavens and vampires dire. 
And thou, Eolus, let thy thunders deep, 
That in the striving elements resound, 
Subside into the gentle tones that sweep 
The silken harp, a harmony profound. 
For here the Angel of good-will to men 
And all the arts of peace has strung for thee 
A nobler harp than any yet whose strain 
Has given back the ocean's minstrelsy, 

When breezes fair 

Press the white sail, 

And every gale 

Coursing the air 
Compels the wandering ships into a fleet. 
As the sure collie gathers, one by one. 
The snowy sheep, and, with the setting sun. 
Follows them home — the ewes with swelling teat, 
The horned ram, and lambs that leaping run. 
So, to the music of this lute of thine, 
Eolus, shepherd of the plains of brine. 
The ships shall gather, flocking in the Gate; — 
Huge merchantmen weighed down with goodly freight, 



THE GREAT BRIDGE. 

The bristling frigate, and the squadron gay 
That skims the wave and dances on the bay. 
O Bridge, whose towers 
Prophetic stand. 
To show the land 
Her silent powers ! 
The multitudinous flow 
Of tides, that come and go, 
All noiseless moves below thy heaving hight; 
Above, with murmuring tread, 
The living and the dead 
Together pass, to rest them for the night. 
O glorious span ! 
Triumphal arch ! 
No chieftain's march, 
No rat-a-plan 
Of drums, victorious from the fray. 
Inaugurates this happier day. 
Two cities populous now consummate 

Their vow to be as one. 
Imperial union 1 The imperial State 

Ascends a worthy throne. 
Almighty Builder, interweave each strand 

With hope and confidence. 
So stretch the giant cords throughout the land. 
Our strength and our defence. 



LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

Upheld by truth and justice' massive towers, 

The way shall lie secure 
To peace and liberty, wliose happy hours 

Unbroken shall endure. 

I stand below 

The Eastern tower. 

The midnight hour, 

Supreme and slow, 
Issues from out the groaning throat of Time. 
Oppressed beneath Eternity, his soul 
Utters in yonder tongue of iron its dole 
Of weariness and woe. The cry sublime 
Pervades the night, while to the stars it calls,— 
The watchmen on the far eternal walls, — 

"What of the night?" 
Tliey seem to })ause a moment — Hercules, 
Whose labors crown him one among the gods; — 
On mountains piled he reached those bright abodes ; 
Such power has toil the thrones of heaven to seize.— 
And great Orion, ancient pioneers, 
To answer from their constellated spheres — 

" 'Twas all in vain, 

" Their labor, when 

" The sons of men, 

" From Babel's plain, 



THE GREAT BRIDGE. 9 

" On stairways imminent 

"Did climb the firmanent. 
" Bat now the gods, themselves confounded, see 
" Them walk a causeway laid upon the skies. 
" They shall to more heroic honors rise, — 
" Span thought's wide gulf and give the soul her liberty." 





THE ARCTIC HEROES. 

OWARD no earthly pole tlieir course is set; 

No earthly coast their faithful watch descries. 
But that all undiscovered bourne, as yet, 

Salutes their wistful eyes. 

The good Jeannette, she did not reach her goal; 

But, where she sank, her sister ship sailed on — 
That spirit-craft, whose compass points the soul 

To shores beyond the Sun. 

Her name is Destiny; and God's own hand 

Upon her helm by day and night is set. 
The other sank, but this will make the land. 

She sank — the brave Jeannette. 

The frightful Hydra coiled about the North, 

Whose hues with glittering scales of ice are blent. 

Crushing, devoured her, while its breath went forth 
Freezing a continent. 

But, those — the heroes, by some instinct mute 

Distinguishing the master from the prey, 

It spared, and sent them on, — the watery brute — 

On their prophetic way. 

10 



THE ARCTIC HEROES. 11 

Soothed by the subtle, life-expelling chill, 

There have been who have perished while they slept 

Unmindful of the spell that bound their will 
And round their heart-strings crept. 

If only this had been the blissful rest 

To their great labors ! So, the Arctic snows 

Had couched them on that frozen ocean's breast, 
And hushed in sleep their woes. 

It was not written thus. The age has need 

Of sufferers whose truth shall exorcise 
Man's noble soul of the ignoble greed 

That throttles it with lies, — 

That weighs all values in those scales of strife, 
Whose standard is the pocket's sordid gain, — 

That coins the moments of a brother's life, 
And worships the profane. 

Oft as the Northern morning lights the far, 

Illimitable reaches of that arch 
Whose glorious span o'ercanopies the star 

That led them on their march, 

Our gazing thoughts in reverence wall turn, 

As to a temple consecrated, fair, 
Whose crystal piles are sculptures, that inurn 

Their fame who perished there. 




THE STORM. 

0, yonder, borne upon tlie treacherous flood 

A beauteous creature moves. 
Were it a living soul, of flesh and blood, 
Fondly impelled by love's 
Impetuous eagerness, it could not keep 
A surer course ; it could not glide and sweep 
In fairer, swifter flight across the deep. 

But, look again ! Caught 'twixt the tempest's blast 

And madly surging seas, 
The shattered sails beat helplessly ; and fast 

The fierce Eumenides, 
Eiding the winds, pursue the hapless thing. 
Storm -lashed and driven, wave-swept and foundering, 
Shoreward it drifts, a bird with broken wing. 

It is thyself, my soul, upon that ocean 

Where the storm-spirit broods 
Of passion and unrest and rapt emotion ; 

Swept by whose mighty moods, — 
Up-borne to heaven, or downward hurled from sight, 
Shoreward thou driftest, where the starless Night 
Will find thee lying, still and cold and white. 

12 




THE AUGURY. 

HE white sea-gulls float up from the bay ; 
And their wings are wet with the salt sea 
dew. 
Oh, what do the notes from their white throats 
say? 
" Tidings, O watching- worn maiden, for you ! " 

The white sea-gulls float up from the bay ; 

And their breasts are wet with the salt sea-dew. 
Oh, Avhat do the notes from their white throats say ? 

" A spirit has flown to the shoreless blue." 

When night and storm were out on the deep, 

And the birds of ocean slept on the wave, 
A cry of despair broke across their sleep — 

"Lost, lost, my Father! Oh, hear me, and save" 

And then the breaking clouds fled away ; 

And a star shone out, of a light divine. 

Uncoffined, unseen, in the dark green bay 

He lieth, embalmed in a shroud of brine. 

13 



14 



LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 



He lietli ? No : only tlie form lies there ;- 
He liveth and lovetli beyond the sun. 

Nor has he forgotten the fond spot, where 
On earth the loved and the lover were one. 

The white sea-gulls float up from the bay ; 

And their wings are wet with the salt sea-dew. 
Oh, what do the notes from their white throats say? 

" He liveth and loveth where all are true." 





BEYOND. 

GOLDEN Sun, sink down to rest 
In the roseate arms of tlie azure West! 
To-day, I swear, thou hast not seen 
Or a field more fair, or a vale more green, 
Than the vale and the field where my heart has been. 

O shades of Evening, swiftly creep 

O'er the arches sprung in the star-lit deep I 

Ye will not reach a point more far,- 

Ye will not unfold a diviner star 

Than the sphere where my hopes and longings are. 

Moon, of searching eye profound ! 

In thy yearly course or thy monthly round, 

Thou hast not found in earth a cave. 

On her mountain slopes or below the wave, 

Or more silent or dark than my love's deep grave. 

O Night, of the lone, voiceless hour, 

When the budding thought blooms a dreamy flower ! 

Thy visions have not filled my brain 

With less empty themes, or a joy less vain 

Than thy shadows that mantle the troubled main. 

15 



16 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

O Morning, bright and pure thou art 

As the dawning love of an angel's heart, 

More beaming, more serene the ray 

That shall usher in the eternal day, — 

That shall banish the night-shade of Earth away. 

For oh, the field and vale lie where 

They are fanned by gales of celestial air ! 

The sphere is immortality ; 

The grave — the past ; mirth the fantasy, 

And the morning — the dawn of the life for aye,. 





A DEAD LOVE. 

HAT shall I do with my dead, dead love? 
Cold on my heart it lies. 
I cannot bury this dear, dead love 
Forever from my eyes. 

My love in life was pure and sweet, 

Tender and true and strong. 
I wept for joy to see the face 

That I had loved so long. 

Out of the West, the far Northwest, 

At sunset all a-flame, — 
Out of the dark, dark night, that follows, 

After a year he came, 

Into the night of my lonely Hfe ;— 

It was a glorious morn. 
Ah, me ! It was the saddest morrow, 

Since he and I were born. 

Is this thy hand, so cold, my darling, 

That was so fond and free? 

Are these thine eyes, so vacant. 

That look, but do not see ? 
17 



18 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

My love in life was pure and sweet, 
Tender and true and strong. 

I wept for joy to see the face 
That I had loved so long. 

And not regret, nor mortal ruth 
Shall change the spirit, now, 

Of the love, in life so true and tender, 
Dead of a broken vow. 





AMOR CREATOR DEUS. 

A FRAGMENT. 

Love, when wert thou born, 
Child ever fair and yonng, though oft for- 

lorn, 
In passion's tatters clad, 

In this so sad, 
Unheavenly world of tears ? 
Eternal, sempiternal are thy years. 
Necessity infinite thee begot, 
The first, when all beside thyself was not,— = 
Thyself, the source and Sire of all that are, 
The lowest atom and the highest star; 
The faintest instinct, and the matchless eye 
Of reason and the soul's authority. 

O Love, when thou wert born. 

The ethereal crystalline irradiate 

With thy fair excellence 

And gladness, whence 

Glory supernal sprang. 

Did mirror thee into thyself, and hang 

The hight and depth with re-create portraitures 

19 



20 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

Of thy exquisite frontal. Who endures — 
What soul, what sense howe'er divine, the sight 
Of love to Love disclosed in its own light? 
Blushing a thousand crimsons, through the vault 
Of heaven, to veil thee from its fond default, 
Thy face shot lightning, and it fell on fire, — 
On chaos fell and conflagration dire. 

O Love, O wondrous Love, 

Within that hell of elements that strove, — 

Within that lurid Night 

Deep laid, thy white. 

Innocent spirit slept 

Serene and imperturbable, and kept 

Its purpose sure in dreams that laid their spell 

Of law and life upon the fire-mist's hell, — 

In dreams, while teens came and went, that wove 

Systems and suns throughout the nebulous Jove ; 

Thy purpose sure pushing its steadfast way 

Through phantasms wild up to the primal day; 

Tlirough monads, through creations dumb it ran, 

Of ox-eyed monsters, up to mind and man. 

Love, beautiful Love, 

Upon that verge of super-sensuous sense 

Thy dreaming footstep paused 

In wonder, caused 



A3I0E CREATOR DEUS. 21 

By the pre-natal hour, 

Full to the unfolding of the human flower 

Consummate, sense and spirit, folded deep 

Within the blissful heart of Love asleep. 

Inwardly stirred, that moment Love awoke, — 

Awoke and slept again. Then fell the stroke, 

The first of Time recorded. ' T was the birth 

Of love in Love's own image on the Earth, — 

The advent of Creation's soul and lord, 

In Nature's flesh, on Nature's native sw^ard. 





HOPE. 

Love, the clay declines 
Far down the fading zone! 
Life's morning liglit no longer shines 
For me, as once it shone. 

O love, the day goes down 

Behind the silent zone ! 

Tlie life whose hght the gloam turns brown, — 

Its birds of song have flown. 

O love, the day is gone ! 
Dark night involves the zone. 
Life its last pillow sleeps upon, 
Death's pillow cold, of stone. 

O love, day breaks again 

O'er the celestial zone ! 

In heaven life wakes, and takes again 

Thy truth's eternal throne. 
22 




BEREFT. 

IIICH way, beloved, whicli way iu this maze 
Of many feet have thy dear footsteps passed? 
my love lost to me, I stand and gaze 
Again to see thee where I saw thee last, 
As voyagers wrecked, on some lone island cast. 
Gaze sea- ward in despair! Thus I, where all 
Life's surging sea is solitude to him 
Whose breaking heart is tearful to the brim, 
And heaven's departing day a mourner's pall 
To eyes that thou dost not illuminate. 
Thou shining lode-star of my passionate, 
Tremulous soul. Oh, hast thou set for aye ? 
Which way, beloved, in this maze which way? 

Which way, beloved ? From the rythmic spheres 
A sense has thrilled me., in the lonely hour 
That, pausing, flies apace, as one who fears 
Darkness and solitude, — the mystic hour 
When spirits pass, and mortals feel their power. 
It was thy step upon the bound of time. 
Which way, beloved, through the whispering air? 
Which way, beloved, on the heavenly stair 

23 



24 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

Invisible ascending? O sublime 

Above the apprehension of my sight 

Ethereal, seraphic, in the Light 

Of light rapt and withdrawn, thou art divine 

And my life lost shall find itself in thine. 




CAN I FORGET. 




AN I forget? 
It thus may be, when years have told their 

tale, 
And left their frosty chaplets on my head, 
With a long lifetime's sorrows overlaid. 
And I am bowed and pale, — 

But, oh, not yet. 

■Nor then forget. 
But if, alas, time's ever onward flight 
Should, while it wastes the form, prey on the soul 
And rust the springs of memory that unroll 
The past ; and all be night, — 

Then, but not yet. 

Nor then ; for when 
So fond, so loving fond, so passionate. 
My heart recalls the moments we have passed, 
So priceless dear, so sacred at the last — 
Till death I'll not forget ; 

Then — only then. 



26 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

And oh, nor then! 
For when is passed the cold and bridge! ess river, 
Shall not I clasp a seraph's form to me, 
In whose rapt eye thv spirit's glance T see? 
Never the Archer's quivev 

To fear again. 





JANUARY. 

DASHING youth is he whose coursers fleet 
Outrun the steeds of Phoebus' flying car. 
His horses are the winds, his lash the sleet; 
He rides the storm, and cometh from afar, — 
The world where everlasting ages are. 
But he is young, and beautiful his feet 
Upon the mountains of the morn. We greet, 
happy Year and Kew, we greet thy face 
And hail in thee fond hope's eternal star. 
Be thou propitious, and thy dwelling place 
For aye shall be our hearts, nor memory mar 
Thy feature's fair with rue's regretful scar. — 
But look, look there! a shade— a spectre fast 
Behind him rides. Alack! my heart, it is the past. 

27 




FEBRUARY. 

HE darkness deepens just before the day, 

When night on night sweeps downward 

from the pole. 

Then watchers weary for the morning pray , 

The noisome dews exhale, as it they stole 

From yawning sepulchres. Upon my soul, 

O AYinter, now at length thy shadows lay, 

As if the weeks would never wear away; 

And dank and grewsome is thy feverous breath. 

Hark ! Wailing bells — heavy and hoarse ; they toll. 

Timing their measures to the march of death. 

Be still, sad heart : the waves of grief that roll 

Tremendous o'er thy sinking hopes, — their goal 

Is Elys' happy shore, and they shall bear 

Thy sorrow on their crest, and lay it safely there. 

28 




MARCH. 

H, wild and wayward offspring of tlie Sun ! 

First-born from bis reunion with the sphere 

That turns again to greet his kiss upon 

The inconstant face, which shuns him every 

year, 

And every 3'ear repents 'mid the severe 

Regrets and penances of winter dun, 

Drear, dark, and desolate ; — the frigid nun 

Among her sister planets. Headstrong child. 

Thou wouldst despoil the hopes, that now appear 

In greening blades and swelling buds, beguiled 

By thee, thou counterfeit, whose treacherous leer 

Takes on a smile. For when subsides her fear 

And Life from long duress adventures forth — 

Full in her face thy blast hurls havoc from the North. 

29 




APRIL. 

SEASON, throned above the Pleiades, 

That, setting, weep afresh to see thee rise 

Supremely regent o'er the rainy seas 

Aerial, which issue from their eyes ; — 

Thy robe of purple is the rainbow's dyes. 

All spangled with the fleck of golden bees 

Early astir among the maple trees. 

Nor is she less a woman than a queen, 

Who changes with her shifting mind the skies ; 

So varying moods diversify the scene, — 

Or cold, or warm, or gay, or full of sighs. 

As now she, beaming, laughs or, frowning cries, — 

Eager to make and passionate to mar 

The joy of Spring, wherein she shines the morning star. 

30 




MAY. 

HE apple-blossoms of the sweet montli of May 
Upon the maiden Spring's uplifted brow 
Fall, in a bridal veil of balmy spray. 

She seeks from Heaven annunciation now : 
It is her wedding-day; and He, whose vow 
Forever, with an everlasting " Yea," 
Swears that the seed-time shall not pass away, — 
He is the bridegroom, — Faith and Nature's God. 

O happy bride, whom Love does thus endow 
With bliss deific, thrilling deep the sod 
That man has lacerated with his plow. 
And then thy joy inspires all nature ; thou 
Dost come rejoicing, with a choiring train 
Of mated birds, whose songs warble their love's refrain. 

31 




JUNE. 

LOYE, tlie month, the day, the hour is here; 

And where art thou? Oh, come! my 

couch is spread 

Upon the immaculate bosom of the year 

Throbbing with life, whose current, rich and red, 

Breaks in the blush of roses that appear 

When heaven tells its secret in her ear. 

And mine? Ah, listen ! — roses for thy bed 

Strewed thick and odorous, and lilies fair 

Massed in a pillow for thy fairer head — 

Thy own sweet breath and thy own lustrous hair 

Shall shame them both. Oh, come ! through arbors green 

And labyrinths of climbing eglantine — 

Oh, come, my love! oh, haste! oh, fly to me I 

In June I pant, I thirst, I faint, I die for thee. 

32 




JULY. 

OEBEAEi, O muse ! I scarce can climb the 

ground 

Precipitous, uprising with the height 

Of great Olympus into depths profound. 

There sits The Thunderer. Sharp lightnings light 

The eyes that, under old Egypta's night 

Draping his brows, flash forked fire. The sound 

Falling strikes heavily, and with a bound 

Reverberating peals along the sky. 

The ocean groans, rolling all ghastly white 

And men and beasts and birds together fly. 

O boy, beware that tree. Dread Heaven! thy blight^ 

Thy thunder-blight has struck, and in the sight — 

The sight of his fond eyes its glare expires. 

His name was Ganymed, and love the death-bolt fires. 

33 




AUGUST. 

HE year is ripening ; her girlhood's thrill 

Is growing fast into a matron's care. 

In clustering grapes the blood begins to 

fill,— 

^i'lie smell of blooming corn-fields loads the air 

With richness. Hear, Heaven, a mother's prayer, 

And gently lead her anxious feet, until 

In Autumn's perfect joy thy blessed will 

Be done. She hears; and Virgo intervenes, 

Blending her smile with Sol's too fervid glare. 

Severely chaste she tempers it, and screens 

The panting Earth. But do thou still beware 

The dog-star's reign. Look skyward ! Sirius there 

Now rages, while he bays the rising moon — 

The harvest moon, as soft as eve and fair as noon. 

34 




SEPTEMBER. 

OMONA, goddess of the year, thy horn 

Is poured into the lap of Autumn crowned 
The Queen of queens, laughing them all to 
scorn, 

Such peace and joy within her realm abound. 
Knee-deep the wallowing wheel goes gaily round 
Crushing the juicy pulp. The full-ripe corn, 
Of stalk and husk and silken tassel shorn. 
Glitters in golden heaps that frequent lie. 

The shining ore of mines above the ground, — 
Bringing to pass the early prophecy 

Of yellow daffodils. The love profound 
Of Nature's heart in man and brute is wound 
In grateful ties about thine own, God, 
Incarnate, first and last, in the immortal clod. 

35 




OCTOBER. 

STOOD alone, and Memory came near. 

Pensive she came, borne on the dreamy 
wings 
Of thoughts that fill the Autumn of the 
year, 
When Silence lays her hand upon the strings 
Of Nature's harp, where Summer's ecboings 
Linger through ripe September. — Hark ! The sere 
And falling leaf. O Death ! and art thou hei'e 
Concealed amid the shadows ? — Pushing back 

Untimely Winter, warm October swings 
The closing portals of the Zodiac 

Open again. The autumnal splendor flings 
On passing Summer and her precious things 
A pall of glory. Thus, oh thus, my heai-t. 
Will love transfigure death, when life and thou do part? 

36 




NOVEMBER. 

TLGKIM of time, thy feet approacli a laud 

Where all is desert, — bleak and mournful 

shore. 

Where leafless trees, for skeletons, upstand, 

And dismal winds, for wailing ghosts, deplore; 

The shore of a dead sea, encrusted o'er 

With frozen dews. Ah, me ! the barren strand 

Of age awaits us all, and the command. 

Dreadful and stern, " Go forward." On that brink, 

O Thou, in whom our Father we adore, 

Divide the waters deathly cold, that shrink 

The soul with fear. Yet now we live. And more 

Wouldst thou? Look back : the past was once before. 

The cup within thy hand is Heaven's choice; 

This, this alone, is sure ; oh, drink it and rejoice 

37 




DECEMBER. 

N" old man, bent with age and reft of hope 
Plods heavily along a drifting road. 
'Tis night. The tempest howls. In one 
fell svvope 
All ills together join to overload 
The steps whose youth the whirlwind did forbode, — 
Harvest of stormy seed. Look ! on the slope 
Verging the grave he totters. Cease to cope, 
O single handed, with almighty Fate. — 

Alas! t1ie old man reaps but that he sowed. 
Eesign tliee, whose repentance comes too late. 
When he was young, from out their cold abode 
And cavernous, he loosed the winds, that showed 
No mercy to the traveler, whose woes 
Now overtake and leave him lost in his own snows. 

38 




ATHANASIA. 

ORTAL, so fine and fragile is tliat thread 

Whereon thy hfe suspended hangs, no eye 
But One, whose vision keen hath numbered 
The sands of shores whose leagues un- 
measured lie, 
Hath seen it ; yet a whole eternity 
Ineffable, in one quick moment dread, 
Along its quivering tension may be sped. 
Infinite soul, conjoined with finite clay, 

Thou art a star alight of God most High 
His life thy being. Passing swift away 

The dust consumes, but thou shalt shine for aye ; 
As light of stars accounted dead — shalt fly 
On, on, and ever on, throughout the vast 
Of thought, — forever present and forever past. 

39 




HERO'S LAMENT. 
T. 

Hero. 

H! have you seen my boy — 

My beautiful, blue-eyed boy ? 

Hither he swam — he swam to me; 

Oh ! save him from the dreadful sea. 

Fishermen. 

No, no, no, — we have not seen your boy, 

Your beautiful, blue-eyed boy. 

Hero. 

Wo, wo, wo, — the light of life was in his eye. 

Fishermen. 

A light? Oh, yes ; we saw a light. 

Against the foaming face of night. 

Flashing it died 

Upon the tide. 

Hero. 

' T was love lit by despair — 

It was his fond soul's prayer 

Within his eye that burned so brilliantly. 

All. 

Wo, wo, wo, — my beautiful, beautiful boy 

My beautiful, blue-eyed boy. 
40 



HERO'S LAMENT. 41 

II. 

Hero. 
Oil ! have you seen my boy — 
My beautiful, blue -eyed boy ? 
Hither he swam — he swam to me, 
Oh ! save him from the stormy sea. 

Fishermen. 
No, no, no, — we have not seen your boy, 
Your beautiful, blue-eyed boy. 

Hero. 
Wo, wo, wo, — the song of songs was in his voice. 

Fishermen. 
A song ? Ah, yes ; we heard a song 
Upon the storm-wind borne along; 
It rose and fell, 
As when a bell, 
Woodrously sweet and clear, 
Rings in the sleeper's ear, 

Swung by some hand 
In fairy-land. 

Hero. 
' T was love against despair, 
Braving the billows there ; 
He sang of me amid the tempest's noise. 

All. 
Wo, wo, wo, — my beautiful, beautiful boy, 
My beautiful, bine -eyed boy. 



42 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

III. 

Hero. 
Oh ! "have you seen my boy — 
My beautiful, blue-eyed boy ? 
Hither he swam — he swam to me ; 
Oh! save him from the raging sea. 

Fishermen. 
No, no, no, — we have not seen your boy, 
Your beautiful, blue-eyed boy. 

Hero. 
Wo, wo, wo, — immortal youth was in his heart. 

Fishermen. 
Immortal ? Ay, we saw a form — 
A spirit soaring in the storm, 
God-like and free, 
. Glorious to see, 
" Hero " — it called again, 
And, beckoning, vanished then. 

Hero. 
^tn ! cruel fate, to rend our lives apart. 

All 
Wo, wo, wo, — my beautiful, beautilul boy 
My beautiful, blue-eyed boy. 




ORION. 

ITEN from her realm autumnal Summer flies, 
And sceptered Winter rules the inverted 

skies, — 
As on the empyreal heights his throne he 
takes,- 

Behold, to heaven the azure concave breaks 

Clear as a crystal vault, whose arch appears 

Kesplendent with a myriad starry spheres, 

Whose radiant legions from the East pursue 

Orion, as he charges on, to view 

The dread encounter while his arms engage 

In god-like strife the Bull's terrific rage. 

Upon his face three orbs inferior glow, 

And round his bead a seeming halo throw. 

Each shoulder labors with a strength divine ; 

Here Bellatrix, there Betelguese shine, 

As if the wrathful energies, that strove, 

Shot fiery flashes in the face of Jove. 

One sturdier arm a sturdy weapon bears, 

With which the hero neither asks nor spares. 

A lion's tawny hide the left adorns, 

And challenges the Bull's defiant horns. 

43 



44 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

He stripped it from a royal monster slain 

In the deep wilds of Tliemiscyra's plain, 

When, by his mother taught, he chased and slew, 

The mightiest hunter that the forest knew. 

Three suns immense, in cosmic order placed, 

Gleam in the girdle that surrounds his waist 

And cheer the night-lorn wanderer at sea, 

And guide his bark across the watery lea. 

A falchion hangs obliquely by his side. 

Its trusty blade in bloody crimson dyed. 

And bright with stars that once were jewels set 

In the queen- mother's golden coronet, — 

Euryale, the Amazonian fair. 

She charmed Posseidon from his ocean lair. 

The god enraptured, sinking on her breast. 

Her embryo son with race divine impressed. 

Upon his ancle, of superior flame 

Burns the imperial orb Eigel by name ; 

As if he trod, so terrible his ire. 

His way sublime in steps of living fire ; 

And Saiph shines on his unbended knee. 

A silver joint in the dun panoply. 

Strive on, Orion, god sprung hero, strive! 
Thy name, a blazonry of stars, will live 
When other names and fames forgotten sleep, 
And Chaos laughs where Clio once did weep ; — 



ORION. 

When mouldering monuments turn memory 
Itself to dust ; when sunken seas are dry, 
And all the world a grave ; when Earth's high noon 
Wears the cold pallor of her long lost moon ; — 
When Earth herself, with all her tribes, lies drowned 
In great Eternity's dread, fathomless profound. 



45 





MY SHIP COME IN 

BEE ATHED an atmosphere of love,- 
' Twas life I long had sought, — 
Stirred by the pinions of a dove 
J That brooded o'er mj thought. 

I saw her first, that summer day 

When standing by the main, 
Launching my fairy ship away. 

To the rich isles of Spain. 

The wind, that shook the dreamy sail, 

Played with her tresses sweet ; 
And caught away her tangled veil, 

And laid it at my feet. 

And when I gave it back to her, 

Her soft eyes spake to me ; 
And I was made a prisoner 

Chained by their modesty. 

O isles of Spain ! shores afar ! 

What were your treasures now? 

O'er life's wide sea a brighter star 

Kose on my tossing prow. 
46 



MY SHIP COME IN. 47 

It led me to her side again ; 

M}^ thought was grown to love. 
We launched our ship upon the main 

I and my household dove. 

And, guided by that star, we steered 

Our course to the fair isle, 
Where fortune's storms no more are feared, 

And pleasures ever smile. 





A REVERIE. 

LOVE the sparkling sea, 

Its breath is life to me ; 

The beckoning surges call me from afar. 

The breezes, sent before, 
Will meet me on the shore. 
Where Neptune waits to launch me in his car. 

The Tritons blow their horns. 

Aurora blushing scorns 

To linger by the old man's bloodless side. 

The ancient mariner 

And first adventurer, — 

" Away," he cries, '* across the waters wide." 

The word JSolus hears. 

He hangs his sullen ears, 

And, muttering thunders, smites the hollow cave. 

The winds, the winds are out. 

In revel and in rout. 

To dance the Devil's dream upon the wave. 

Oh, swifter than the steed, 
Whose wings give double speed, 

48 



A REVERIE 49 

We bound from crest to crest along the main. 

The foam is on our hair ; 

The spray is everywhere ; 

Oar eyes are blinded with the briny rain. 

' Tis now we touch the stars ; 

' Tis now we graze the bars ; 

My brain — it reels, my heart — it stops ; Give o'er, 

I cried, and swooned away. 

I woke ; the sunset lay, 

Like heaven's light upon the farther shore. 

The Sea-god's mighty hand 

Was steering to the land. 

" Look up," he said ; and lo, a star serene, 

More gracious than the light 

Of morning, lit the night ! 

" Yenus," he said, "our cynosure; thy queen." 

This land, said I, — it seems 

The Eden, that in dreams 

I once descried when youth was in my heart. 

I know it by those bells ! 

Oh, list ! their rapture swells 

More tuneful than Cecilia's purest art. 

And o'er the lessening reach 

Between us and the beach, 
4 



50 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

Melodorous fragrance wafted comes to me ; 
As 'twere her honeyed breath, 
Whose foud soul whispereth 
Itself away in love's sweet ecstasy. 

love, I come to thee 
Across life's stormy sea — 

To thee and home, Earth's only paradise ; 

Whose glory is thine eye, 

Thy voice its melody. 

Thy grace its flower and perfume. Happy thrice, 

Oh, thrice, thrice happy he 

Whose youth is wed with thee! 

My hope was there; fruition crowns my quest. 

1 tread that shore, and feel 
Love's drowsy languor heal 

The tempest's woes, and fill my heart with rest. 

I would I were the sea, 

And thou a mermaid free ; 

Its wealth untold, love ! should be thy dower. 

Couched in my being's deep. 

The watches of thy sleep 

Should be the ebbings of its tidal power. 



A REVERIE. 

There is a boundless sea, 

God's blessed deity, 

Awaits our life and all its love so dear 

Thither our spirits glide. 

To mingle with that tide, 

And in it find their heaven's immortal sphere. 



51 





IN THE HAPPY SUMMER TIME, 

PIRIT I seemed to be, on the air floating, 

Lost in a luminous sense of existence. 
Koises of earth I heard, borne far and faintly. 
In the quiet Autumn time. 

Slowly uplifting me, rising and falling. 

Wavered the aestuose tides of the air-sea. 
Suddenly shrinking they fled, tempest-stricken. 
In the dreary Autumn time. 

Hurled was I then with the snow-flakes and driven ; 

Low on the moor laid, insensate and frozen, — 
Laid like a clod, with the clods of the fallow. 
In the awful Winter time. 

Still stood the Sun, for a day, in that valley 

Of shadow and death — for a day, and, relenting, 
Turned, while the elements wept ; and I dreamed then. 
In the woful Winter time. 

Then all was night again. Night of such darkness 

Only tlie dead know, — nor know it. " Awake thou," 
Thundered a voice, whispered, sighed, and entreated, 
In the glad — in the sweet Spring time. 
52 



IN THE HAPPY SUMMER TIME. 63 

Breath of the icy North, northward returning, 

Laden with languor and rapture and passion ; 
Boughs of the thorn-tree, with swollen buds laden, 
In the Spring, in the fond Spring time. 

Orchards, full-drifted with snow banks of apple-blooms ; 

Mould of all earthiness, wrought into beauty, 
Thrilled into fragrance and flushed with the throbbings 
Of glorious, green Spring time. 

Started and thrilled all my soul, re-embodied 

In numberless exquisite senses, a harp 
Swept by great Pan, — by his fingers symphonic, 
In the happy Summer time. 

Trill of the lark from the morning-lit heavens. 
Blue of the blue-bird and gold of the oriole, 
Falling and flashing and splendoring together. 
In the happy Summer time. 

Heat of high noon, and the reapers reposing ; 

Honey-bees drowsing, as drunken with poppy ; 
Only the fly and the bumble-bee stirring, 
In the happy Summer time. 

Crash of the lightning, and pulse of the sleeping sea 

Under the silent stars ; moon-lighted lovers ; 

Dream-lands and fairy-lands; visions and voices. 

In the happy Summer time. 



54 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

Islands of palm-trees, fair, emerald islands, 
Floating on azure in sunsets of topaz, — 
Haunts of the South-wind that sleeps in their shadow, 
In the happy Summer time. 

Rest with me, love, on the bank where the South- wind. 
Coursing the deep, flings the joy of its fountains, — 
Their rapturous coolness again from its wings, 
In the happy Summer time. 

Rest with me here, on the sweet sod of Summer; 

Weave, love, the silk-worm's web over and round us; 
Pass with me thus to the Soul universal, 
In the happy Summer time. 




REMEMBRANCE. 

HOU art a dream, my love, thou art a dream. 
Ravished by time and distance from my 
sight, 
Thy absence turns the noontide into night ; 
And our fond loves, that were so living, seem 
The ghost of dead delight. 

Thou art a voice, my love, thou art a voice 

Lingering in a forever dying tone 
That vibrates in the aching heart alone, 

And all sweet sounds beside — a jangling noise, 
A pain, a grief, a groan. 

Thou art a shadow, love, the shadow cast 
Upon life's present moment by the thought 

Of happiness that was, but now is not ; 
The memory impassionate of a past 
With passion over-fraught. 

Thou art a sigh, my love, thou art a sigh ; 

The whispering zephyr, after that the rain 
Of sobbing storms has ceased, and come again 

The calm of star-light to the weeping sky, 
And on the troubled main. 

55 



56 LYRICS AND OTHER P0E3IS. 

Where art thou, clearest? Where the happy spot, 
That feels the press of th}^ beloved feet? 

What star or planet fair? What field or street? 
Alas, where e'er it be, I know it not. 

Nor when our lips will meet ! 

But some day I shall clasp thee, on that shore 
Where neither mountains rise nor oceans roll; 

Whose light and atmosphere will be thy soul ; 
And thou tlie vision I shall there adore, 
Life's rest, reward and goal. 





ODE IV, BOOK I. HORACE 
TO LUCIUS SESTIUS. 

^FRING'S glad succession and the western wind 
Dissolve stern Winter and his ice- chains 

break. 
The ships, dry standing, leave the banks 
behind, 
Drawn down on groaning trucks to sea and lake. 
No longer now the folded herds delight 
In stalls of thatch, or tasteless husks desire. 
The meads with hoar frost are no longer white; 
And the rude swain ignores the blazing fire. 
Now Cytherea leads her choiring bands, 
The moon meridian looking from her seat. 
The pleasing Graces with the nymphs join hands. 
And strike the earth with ever changing feet; 
While glowing Vulcan lights with thunder brands 
The heavy forges where the Cyclops beat. 
Now it becomes the shining head to wreathe 
With the green myrtle, or tlie early flowers 
Tliat love to blossom on the mellow heath ; — 
Now unto Faun to slay, in leafy bowers, 
A lamb or kid, as with his wish agreeth. 

57 



58 LYRICS AND OTHER POEBIS. 

Death, pale of clieek, invades with equal pace 

The rich man's palace and the poor man's shed. 

O Sestius opulent, life's little space 

Forbids us enter on the hope ahead 

Far reaching. Soon the night will press thee on, 

And soon the fabled shades and cheerless hall 

Plutonian. When thither you are gone, 

No more to you the shaken dice will call, 

As master of the merrj^ realms of wine; — 

No more fair Lycidas will you admire, 

For whom each youth now burns with flame divine, — 

For whom the vir^^ins soon will feel love's warm desire. 





ODE VII, BOOK I. HORACE. 
TO MANATIUS PLANCUS. 

OME Mjtelene, or illustrious Ehocles, 

Or Ephesus, or the high walls which stand 
Warders of Corinth and her peaceful codes, 
Exposed to armed fleets on either hand; 

Or Thebes the mother of the god of wine, 

Or Thessaly renowned for Tempo's vale, 

Or Delphi for Apollo's mystic shrine, — 

Some these will praise ; while others, in a tale 

Of endless verse, all labor else forgone, 

The city of chaste Pallas celebrate. 

And with an olive bough their temples crown 

From every spot her heroes consecrate. 

In Juno's honor many a one will sing 

Argos, the nurse of steeds of fiery eye ; 

Mycenae too, grown rich in treasuring 

The yellow gold. Not Sparta, if she lie 

In meek submission to her tyrant's will. 

Has me so struck, nor I the campus love — 

Fertile Larissa's, as the mountain rill, 

Resounding Albunea's home ; the grove 

Tiburnian, — the craggy Anio, and 

59 



60 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

The orchards moist with running rivulets. 

As oft from murlcy skies the Soutli wind bland 

Eemoves the clouds, nor constant showers begets, 

Do thou remember, Plancus, even so. 

Wisely to terminate with soothing wine 

The toils of life, and thus its griefs forego ; 

Whether for thee the camps with standards shine, 

Or thy umbrageous Tiber thee retain. 

Tho' Teucer fled his sire and Salamis, 

Yet with a poplar garland he was fain 

To bind his temples, so the story is. 

Wet with Lyaean wine, and thus to cheer 

His weeping friends: — " Whithersoe'er, I say, 

boon companions and associates dear. 

Fortune shall lead, thither we will away ! 

More gracious than a parent's is her care. 

With Teucer 's leadership and augury. 

Of nothing must your fearless hearts despair, 

Since truthfully Apollo promised me 

Another Salamis upon the shore 

Unknown. Ye braves, who oft with me before 

Have suffered greater ills, with wine now banish sorrow. 

Over the wide sea we shall journey on the morrow. 




LIBERTY. 
I. 

STOOD upon the shore of a wide sea 
Kestlessly rolling. 
Loud is thy plaint ; what may its burden be ? 
1 said, condoling. 



Is it remorse for those who, left to die, 
To the escheating, — 

Thy multitudinous hands smothered their cry, 
Vainly entreating? 

Or is it sorrow for the wreckage wrought ; 

The storm compelling ; 
While, in thy depths so troubled and distraught, 

Thou wast rebelling ? 

For thou of old hast been a friend to man 

Blindly obeying 
The law of force— but for some better plan 

Hoping and praying. 

61 



62 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS: 

So, pausing, thou didst part to make a way 
For bondmen flying. 

Turning again, lo, where the tyrant lay 
Engulfed and dying ! 

Mingling its own with thy mysterious liglit ; 

Divinely beaming ; 
Faith's mystic planet traversing earth's night; 

A vision seeming 

Of saints and seraphs, once the Holy Grail, 

Wondrous in story, 
Across thy waters left its world-wide trail 

Of grace and glory. 

And when the powers of light and darkness strove,- 
Truth with delusion, 

And Freedom's Ark before the tempest drove, 
Of revolution, 

Making no port, — less fearful of the forms 

Of thy commotion, 
Hope launched it forth on thy protecting storms, 

Thou mighty Ocean. 

And here uprising on thy wave-beat strand 
In strength and beauty. 

And holding Hope's bright beacon in her hand. 
In grateful duty 



LIBERTY. ^3 

She— Freedom— seaward turns, to tliee. Her light 

Shall perisli never, 
Whilst thou below, in majesty and might, 

Rollest forever. 

II. 

Hail, holy Liberty; 
Spouse of humanity ; 
Mother of equity; 

Angel of light! 
Blest be the city, on 
Which thy fair eidolon 
Beams when the day is gone, 

Star of the night. 

Lo, where thy exiles, 

From hate and oppression, come 

Seeking a hearth and home 

Over the sea, — 
Here, by Columbia's gate. 
Thou dost in welcome wait, 
Showing the high Estate 
Founded by thee. 

Wild was the wave when thou, 
Guiding the pilgrim's prow, 
Leddest thy chosen through 
Darkness and deep. — 



64 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

Wilder their fury, whose 
Murderous madness chose 
Faggots and fangs for those 

Whom thou didst keep. 

Free and American 
My fellow-countrymen, 
Native or alien. 

They were our sires. 
Born of their spirit, 
The name we inherit — 
The same let ns merit. 

Redeemed by the fires 

That lighted a nation 
Its way to salvation, 
Through red tribulation 

And Yalley Forge; — 
That woke the world's wonder 
At chains rent asunder. 
And slaves freed from under 

The curse and scourge. 

III. 

Amen ; so may it be — 
Freedom and equity 
Now and for aye. 



LIBERTY. 65 

Answer, tlioa swelling main ; 
Thunder thy glad refrain. 
Echo it back again, 
Kiver and bay. 

Amen ; amen again. 

Peace and good will to men, — 

These are thy themes, 
Saint of the battle-field ; 
Witness and martyr sealed ; 
First unto men revealed 

In songs and dreams. 

Amen ; so shall it be. 
He who so patiently 

Suflfereth wrong, — 
By His eternal right 
Thou shalt thy foes requite, 
And in triumphant might 

Utter thy song. 





PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 

NCAENATE voice of song, between 
the soul 
And lier ideal tliou, a god, dost 
stand. 

Siiblime of height, that world to either pole — 
Realm beyond realm opens before thee ; and 
The stars lie in the compass of thy hand. 



And then, transcendent artist, on thy scroll, 

In elemental characters of light 
Thou dost portray thy vision, and nnroll 

The revelation to our human sight. 

Look, mortal, look ! It is Parnassus' hight 



O minstrel eloquent ! so may we learn 
To listen and to love, that in the day 

When we stand forth, each in his little turn, 
The hymniugs of the choirs seraphic may 
Attune our hearts to their supernal lay. 
66 



PERCY BYSSEE SHELLEY. 

' Tis so, that when, as Ins while she flies 
Trailing the solar splendors on the wrack, 

Tliy genius soars across its native skies, 

For it the morning stars, that sang, give back 
The music of the spheres along its track. 



67 





LILIAN ADELAIDE NEILSON. 

HERE Nilus flows, great river oC the gods, 
Past old Egjpta's fanes ; 
Where lovers languish, and the lotus nods, 
And dreamy silence reigns ; 

Where in the youth-time of the Pharaohs 

Osiris walked the earth ; 
Where Art was born, and Arcliitecture rose. 

And Science had her birth, — 

There was the cradle of tliy genius; there 

Thy wondrous lineage sprang. 
Primeval demigods thy fathers were, 

And thee the poets sang. 

From Homer down, in Helen, and that queen 

Whose life the flames up-swept; 
And also in Cleopatra, I ween. 

Thy tragic pathos wept, 

O child of rhapsody and passion, 

With whose poetic soul 
Europa's storms and Afric's dazzling sun 

Were blended, in that role 

C8 



LILIAN ADELAIDE NEILSON. 69 

Wherein we saw thee madly sighing, so 

As it were death to part ; 
Then lost in love's unutterable woe, 

And dead on Romeo's heart. — 

Wherein thou wert fond Psyche, all aglow, 

Whose trembling heart beat fast ; 
And then divinest sorrow — " Romeo, 

" I come, I come at last." 

Fair Star, when thou that zenith didst ascend 

Where genius shines alone. 
The world below was proud to be thy friend, 

And make thy cause its own. 

But when detraction's rank, invidious breath 

Thy lustrous name profaned, 
Ephemeral as the planet's lunar wraith, 

Its fickle worship waned. 

Yet still thou shinest, moving toward that Sphere 

Whose gates are never shut ; 
And where at last thy spirit will appear 

A seraph glorious. — But, 

The generous sentiment and noble soul 

Of chivalry have fled 
And, wrapped in pietism's mummy-roll, 

Sweet charity lies dead. 




WESTCHESTER— IDYL. 

OW Day departing, on the Western bound 
Turns to salute lier elder sister, Niglit. 
That sullen hag, as the sweet Day looks 
round. 

From her black, wrinkled face all bathed in light 
Flings back a thousand splendors ; — e'en the ground 
Whereon she walks with glory is bedight. 
And she a beauty made who erst was born a fright. 

Fair land of purple hills, rising afar, 

Thou art my theme, however varying 

The notes I touch. Twilight and evening's star 

Be only symphonies. One song I sing. 

Hymning thy praise, all other praises are 

But echoes of thine own. In the bright ring 

Of thoughts, however chased, thou art the pearly thing. 

Fair land of purple hills, rising afar, 

Hight beyond hight, until their summits seem 

Steps to the skies — whose Titan hands unbar 

Those gates that stand, as in the seer's dream 

The gates of Heaven stood, gloriously ajar 

Upon thy bourne at sunset, when the gleam 

Of blazing sapphires falls from the blest hights supreme? 

70 



WESTCHESTER— IDYL. 71 

When first I turned my restless feet to thee, 
I came a weary wanderer forlorn. 
Deceived of men, mocked of adversity, 
Upon me dawned thy hope's auspicious morn. 
For thou didst hope inspire : thy sympathy 
Was a new life, healing the wounds of scorn — 
The breast of Nature to the child of Nature born. 

In the wild storm and in the whispering gale, 

In every murmuring stream and singing bird, — 

The crashing thunder and the echoing vale, 

It was the voice of Nature that I heard. 

Its eloquence did every sense assail ; 

And every answering chord within me stirred 

Could only silence keep, where language had no word. 

Fair land, the guiding hand that led me on 

To lay my soul an offering at thy shrine, 

Now points remembrance back ; and like the swan, 

Whose dying strains all dulcet notes combine, 

My heart recalling joys forever gone, 

And pausing on the verge of hope's decline, 

Pours out its fond lament for " days of auld lang syne." 

O Memory, thou ever constant friend, 
How wondrous is thy life! Change nor decay 
Impairs thy youth ; while the dissolving end, 
Which sweeps together men and moons away, 



72 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

Is ever thy beginning ; — as ascend 

The stars of light at the dark death of day, 

So of the dying present thou art born for aye. 

My heart's Arcadian home, upon tby hills 

How many pilgrims, weary unto sleep, 

Have pitched their silent tents ; life's feverish ills 

The greater and the less, quenched in the deep, 

Unbreaking slumber. Memory comes and tills 

The sacred sod, whose wreathing ivies creep 

Wet with the dewy tears that love and reverence weep. 

But where the passionless, perchance more blest, 

Had found in thee a grave, a cradle I : 

For there my heart was born. As in their nest 

The hatching brood, by hunger taught, do cry, — 

So, to its nascent longing and unrest. 

Love gave a voice. In vain did Nature try 

To soothe me, fond old nurse, with her soft lullaby. 

For I would not be soothed. Was the fault mine, 

If fault there were, that not with blandishment, 

Cupid, thou arch playfellow divine. 

Thy mother's lusty child would be content ? 

Kisses — they be love's only anodyne. 

The fevering poison by thine arrows sent 

Her lips alone can draw, and quell the bleeding rent. 



WESTCHESTER— IDYL. 73 

With tlie sweet strain, whose theme is love's distress, 

War's horrid turbulence discordant blends. 

Tempest and calm, fury and tenderness, 

No concord know, else hell and heaven were friends. 

Yet slaughter dire and passion's caress 

On Earth one picture make ; one voice ascends. 

The avenging cry in which the song of Eden ends. 

God of our fathers, whose creative plan 

Evolved this earthly stage, where crime and wo, 

Masked in thy image, — so Thou madest man, — 

In dreadful majesty stalk to and fro. 

Thy purpose infinite we cannot scan, 

Yet, finite as we are, too well we know 

The tragedy is real, however grand the show. 

From her blest station Mercy stands at gaze, 

The more confounded while she looks again. 

Nations in arms arrayed her sight amaze : 

Amazement turns to stony horror, when 

A carnival of lust amid the blaze 

Of cities sacked she sees. Hell shudders then 

Herself, while kings and popes cry, " (j\ory \ " and " Amen ! '' 

Fair Leyden, star of Freedom's rising state, 
Fierce was the fight that gave thy arms renown. 
Thy hands, all bleeding, wrenched the sword of hate 
From tyranny, and threw Eome's idol down. 



74 LYRICS AND OTHER P0E3IS. 

Tliou — thou that harlot's thirst didst satiate 

With gall, and blight the Spanish Gorgon's frown. 

God's be the praise, — and thine the conquest and the crown. 

Spirit of Liberty, thy home is found 

In every heart that loves thy sacred name. 

Thou hast no dwelling else. — The world aronnd, 

All climes and countries are to thee the same ; 

But, where the dykes of Holland set a bound 

To foes, whose whips tliy soul could never tame. 

There first, in Church and State, thy kingless kingdom came. 

So I salute thee, Holland, in the lay 
That chants the praises of my own fair land. 
Ye stood together in that evil day 
When English patriots felt the iron hand 
Upon their necks. — Sailing up yonder bay. 
Thy exiles came, while Plymouth's rocky strand 
Welcomed with hoarse acclaim the Mayflower's pilgrim 
band. 

And here, Westchester, on tli}^ storied plains 

Their sons, our fathers, fought. The outraged earth. 

Whene'er oppression's cruel lust profanes 

Her sacred husbandry, gives spiteful birth 

To armed giants, where the vernal rains 

Had wooed her smile. There is no soil so dearth, 

But tyrants find how much its yield of men is worth. 



WESTCHESTER— IDYL. 75 

Ye smiling vales, where Summer liolds her seat 
Beneath the blue expanse of skies serene, 
And Bronx, all wound about her flowery feet, 
Enamoured glides his grassy banks between, — ■ 
Ye happy vales, of solitude replete. 
Where wealth, world-weary, hides within your green. 
Umbrageous depths, how changed the present, peaceful 
scene. 

When lie, of all our liberties the sire, 
From your advantage ground defied the foe, 
Dark was the hour. All ready to expire. 
The embers of his country's hope burned low. 
But in the hero's heart there was a fire, 
Wiiere Freedom kindled, as her despots know. 
The torch whose beams their light round the wide world do 
thi'ow. 

A wilderness before him, in his rear 

Uprose disaster's visage frowning black. 

But, smiling at defeat, he mocked at fear. 

And, turning in his Northward march, struck back, 

Dealing the hirelings ball for bullet, here 

Where ye did see it. In the smoky wrack 

Of war and night concealed, he kept his onward track. 

O soil to their bright virtues consecrate. 

Who made your pastures greener for their blood, 



76 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

We tread, too little mindful of their fate 
Who in the breach of battle fearless stood. 
And still they stand, foundations in that state 
Which lifts its Ararat above the flood 
Of human destiny, a refuge fair and good. 

When Chaos travailed in the mighty throes 

That gave Creation birth, shoreless the deep, 

Like a huge caul, did the young sphere enclose. 

Again God spake, when, rolling heap on heap. 

The waters fled. — And then thy hills uprose. 

Yet still within its arms does the sea keep 

Thee clasped, while on thy shore it sobs itself to sleep. 

As when a lover, of his bride bereft, 

All inconsolable his grief outpours ; 

And, holding fast the body that is left. 

Takes to his heart the dust that he adores, — 

So the fond sea, from thee asunder cleft. 

All prostrate lies along the crumbling shores ~^ 

Whose loss, in ceaseless sighs, its heaving breast deplores. 

And I for thee, Arcadia, lament. 

Like one who in his grief no solace knows. 

The luckless wight, whose fortune all is spent, 

nis useless purse after his fortune throws. 

But I my heart will keep till fate relent. 

For he may smiling come, who weeping goes. 

As, after darkness, light; and, after pain, repose. 




FREDERICK III. 

HOU flickering ray of pure and kindly liglit, 

Set in that royal socket whence the fire 

Of quenchless wars flashed forth upon the 

night 

Of ages past, there is no happier sight 

Than peace enthroned beneath the golden tire 

That monarchs wear; there is no music, Sire, 

Like that which soothes the crowned hero's ears, 

Wlien, bending o'er his sleeping realm, he hears 

His dear name murmured in her constant dreams. 

Thy own name, Fritz, is that fond theme of themes. 

The world, thou Prince of Pain, its empire lays 

Of homage at thy feet, whose numbered days 

Propound again the fateful riddle, — why 

Despots who hate should live, whilst thou, who lovest, 

must die. 

77 




HARRY BRANDON. 

NE eventide, from solitude's despair 

A fugitive, — as the star-haunted sea 
From its own waste of waters ceaselessly 
^i'o-landward yearns, and breaks in passion- 
ate prayer, 
All night in-rolling and up-dashing there — 
Thus I, alone, and weary for the unrest 
That drives life's passion soul-ward in its quest. 
Knelt on the heavenly threshold. List ! a crj, 
Bird-like and tremulous, and still more clear, — 
An echo from the unutterable sphere. 
Nearer descending, filling all the sky. 
Borne through the Gates of God. Uplifted high 
They bid me pass where winged seraphim 
Kesponsive cry in the eternal hymn. 

78 




EDWARD MCGLYNN. 

HRICE blessed priest of a thrice holy cause, 
Speak on ; a listening world is at thy feet. 
Cold is thy censer, but its offering meet 
Fiom thy impassioned, quenchless lips still 
draws 
Tlie breath that kindled it, — that, burning, awes 
The hand that fain would smother it. The Mi^ht 
Invincible, whose otiier name is Right, 
Still rales by thee : the child-devouring curse 
That mocks the Christ and worships Moloch — worse 
Than Earth's first woe, the curse that now amain 
Wrings blood for sweat from human heart and brain, — 
Tills Herod-handed sin thou shalt retain, 
And they that shrive it expiate Herod's crime, 
Dying a death loathsome before its time. 

79 




THE MISERLY MILLIONAIRE. 

F you liad any human excellence 
To mark you as a man ; 
If over any brute the preference, 
I would withold the ban 

Of scorn your miserable soul deserves, 

If soul at all you have. 
The villian, who his petty despot serves, 

Is not so poor a slave. 

The sot, who welters in his drunkenness, 

Is less inebriate 
Than you, whom your own sottish greediness 

Can never satiate. 

Go, give some beggar- child a worn out cent, 

And, ere his eye can scan 
The whole of it, bethink you and repent. 

God help you, — if He can. 
80 




SPRING. 

E wintery storms and winds, farewell ! 
Spring lias come witli us to dwell. 

The desolation ye have wrought, 
She speedily will bring to naught, 

Clothing the eartli in verdure sweet, 
Instead of frost and snow and sleet. 

The fettered brook and ice-bound pond 
Obey the magic of her wand. 
The frightened birds come back again, 
To chant the blessings of her reign. 

Fragrance and beauty, life and song 
Come, followers in her train along. 

She breaths upon the frozen field. 
And makes it like a mother yield. 

Thus having blessed the grateful earth, 
Sending us smiles where all was dearth, 

She then entrusts the summer sun 
To finish what she had begun. 

For she must hie away, away. 
Until a twelvemonth from to-day. 
6 81 




THE NEW AND VULGAR RICH. 

STOOD on the Fifth Avenue 
A -gazing at the crowd ; 
And some were dressed so Englisli, 
And some were dressed so loud, 

I grew bewildered, wondering 

What was what, and whicli was which, 

A-gazing, on the Avenue, 

At the new and vulgar rich. 

And there I saw Miss Lillian Aire, 

Whose fortune is untold, 

As down the flashing thoroughfare 

Her purple chariot rolled. 

I used to know old Doctor Quack, 

Her father, he was "sich" ; 

And uow they're on the Avenue, 

With the rest of the vulgar rich. 

He grew so rich — her father — 
That at last it turned his head ; 
And then he fell a-thinking 
He was growing poor instead. 
82 



THE NEW AND VULGAR RICH, 

He died of this delusion, 
Not knowing whicli was wliicli — 
The Five Points, or the Avenue 
Of the new and vulgar rich. 

But what is this my eyes see, 
So unlike the human kind ! 
One part goes prancing on before, 
The other wags behind. 
A woman or a Centaur ? 
I can't determine which, 
A-stalking on the Avenue 
Of the new and vulgar rich. 

And yonder comes a gou-gou ; 
They seem as they would meet. 
I never saw such flirting, 
By daylight on the street. 
His father was a Broadway Jew, 
His mother was a witch ; 
And now he's on the Avenue, 
With the new and vulgar rich. 

I live in "Philadelphy," 
And I'm glad I have enough 
Of other things to answer 
For my lack of the cheap stuff. 



84 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

That "gilds the straitened forehead" 
Of the ambulating fool, 
Who never knew his grandfather, 
And never went to school. 

I live in " Philadelphy," 

But in Boston was I born ; 

Which tells you why I seem to speak, 

With some degree of scorn. 

To speak you fair, I'm in despair, 

A-doubting which is which — 

The Bay, or the Square, or the Thoroughfare 

Of the new and vulgar rich. 



,.^ 




MISS CLARA ST. CLAIR AND HER MIL- 
LIONAIRE. 

ISS Clara St. Clair, 

Of Louisberg Square, 
Was growing to be a youDg lady. 
Her mother had said 
That Clara should wed 
Prince Patrick Fitzpratrick O'Brady. 
A widower and a millionaire ; 
A miserly, manifold prince and heir, 
Whose heart was as hard as millstones aire^ 
She should, the lucky young lady. 

But Clara St. Clair— 

She did not despair. 
Having eyes of her own for to see with ; 

And a will of her own, 

And a till of her own. 
To say who was the beau she'd agree with. 
No Patrick Fitzpatrick O'Brady. 
No widower and a millionaire; 
No miserly, manifold prince and heir, 
Whose heart was as hard as millstones aire^ 
Would she, the silly young lady. 
85 



86 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

Her father's pill-mills 
And sjrups and squills 
Were posted and painted all over the hills. 
Whence robes to astound, 
And pearls by the pound, 
And laces of diamonds her neck wound around. 
And Patrick Fitzpatrick O'Brady, 
The widower and a millionaire, — 
A miserly, manifold prince and heir, 
Whose heart was hard as millstones aire^ 

Made love to this regal young lady. 

To divine Nahant, 
As was now their wont. 
The household removed for a change of air; 
And every night, 
By the moon's pale light, 
A jew sharp played under her window there. 
No Patrick Fitzpatrick O'Brady, 
No widower and a millionaire. 
But a generous, spendthrift, nobody's heir, 
Whose heart was soft as a Bartlett pear, 

Thus wooed this susceptible lady. 

Miss Clara St. Clair, 
Of Louisberg Square, 



MISS CLARA ST. CLAIR AND HER MILLIONAIRE. 87 

Was missing one morning that summer; 
And footprints around, 
Where she jumped to the ground, 

Just fitted the shoes of a drummer. 

No Patrick Fitzpatrick O'Brady ; 

No widower and a millionaire, 

But a generous, spendthrift, nobody's heir, 

Whose heart was soft as a Bartlett pear. 

Had wooed and had won this young lady. 

The prince took to horse. 

Ere bad should be worse. 
And spied them just entering Salem by Lynn. 

"A challenge!" he cried. 

The drummer replied — 
"I'll fight you with pistols, close up to the chin, 
"Prince Patrick Fitzpatrick O'Brady!" 
The miserly prince and millionaire. 
And the generous spendthrift, who did not care — 
Oh, wlio do you think their seconds were? 
The mother herself and the lady. 

"At his wooden head 

"Aim your cartridge lead," 
Miss Clara St. Clair to her lover had said. 

" His impudent face 

" Is made out of brass," 
Said her mother, "aim low at his heart instead. 



88 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

" Prince Patrick Fitzpatricl.: O'Bracly." 

The widower and a millionaire, 

And the brazen-faced, spendthrift, nobody's heir, 

Whose hearts were a millstone and Bartlett pear, 

Thus fought for that charming young lady. 

" One, two — fire." Bang, bang ! 

Poor Clara she sprang. 
And lay prone on the face of her drummer quite dead. 

When over them fell 

The other pell-mell, 
And smashed her and mashed her as if he were lead. 
'-O Patrick Fitzpatrick O'Brady! 
"Thou widower and a millionaire, 
" Thy heart, as hard as millstones aire, 
" Has ' mashed ' me at last, and some to spare ; 

" I'll marry you," groaned the young lady. 





THE MESCAL OF MONTEZUMA, 

OR THE GREAT KETTLE OF POPOCATAPETL. 

OUNTAIN of Anahuac, sublimely grand, 
O Popocatapetl, 
Astride tliy peak did Montezuma stand, 
Holding a vessel in his mighty hand! 
It was a kettle, ^ 

O Popocatapetl, 
It was a kettle! 
He had gone up, near as I can find out, 

On Popocatapetl, 
With all his Aztec lords and peon rout. 
His cactus kingdom for to look about. 
Confound the nettle 
From Popocatapetl, — 
Confound the nettle.— 
And plight the rising sun his royal troth, 

On Popocatapetl ; — 
The cactus king to take the cactus oath 
Wet with a stunning draught of cactus broth 
Prom out that kettle, 
On Popocatapetl, — 
From that great kettle 



89 



90 LYBICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

Ah, reader, didst thou never lave thy whistle, 

On Popocatapetl, 
With mescal softer than the down of thistle, 
And fierier than the scorpion's sting-y bristle, — 

That crawling nettle 

Of Popocatapetl, — 

That crawling nettle? 

Then go to Mexico, and fearless quaff, 

On Popocatapetl, 
The stuff that makes her tropic daughters laugh, 
And soon will make you languish like a calf; 

And let it settle. 

On Popocatapetl, — ■ 

And let it settle. 

' Twas a volcano in those days of old, 

This Popocatapetl, 
Adown whose sides the lava sometimes rolled ; 
Such was the youthful freshness, I am told, 

And fiery mettle 

Of Popocatapetl, — 

Of Po-po cat-a-pet-1. 

The king had sworn that on tliis great occasion. 

On Popocatapetl, 
lie would cook up, for the whole Aztec nation, 
Mescal enough for its intoxication, 



THE MESCAL OF 3I0NTEZU3IA. 91 

III that same kettle, 
On Popocatapetl, — 
In that great kettle. 

And there with the hot cauldron he did wrestle, 

On Popocatapetl, 
Hung from his hand as 't were a kind of trestle. 
" Ye gods," he cried, " I'll bet I'll drop this vessel, 

" Ye gods, I'll bet I will, 

" In Popocatapetl ; 

"Yegods, I'llbetl will!" 

And so with that he did ; and the wide muzzle 

Of Popocatapetl 
That precious mescal all did gorge and guzzle. 
How it did sputter, hiss and fizzle-fuzzle 

In the red throttle 

Of Popocatapotl, — 

In that red throttle. 

This was the last of Popocatapotl, — 

Of Popocatapetl. 
Take care ! You sometimes never can tell what'll 
Betide your own throat, from the uncorked bottle 

Filled from that kettle 

Of Popocatapetl, — 

From that great kettle. 



92 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

Montezuma, mighty mescal man ! 

O Popocatapetl, 
That overlookest Ochopetlabuacan 
And Iztaccihuatl ! — Pronounce them if you caa,- 

O big brass kettle 

Of Popocatapetl ! 

O great Quetzalcoatl ! 





TOUNG TALOUNG. 

AIL sacred brute ! Thrice welcome to these 
shores. 
Whereon the surges of Atlantic's main 
Swept by the winds that heralded thy fame 
And bore it hitherward, break ceaselessly, 
Resounding in our unaccustomed ears 
The voice of an adoring nation's cry, 
As 'twere the noise of many waters. Hark, 
" Toung, Toung Taloung, Taloung ; Toung, ToungTaloung." 
Forth issuing from his shrine of beaten gold, 
Lo, lo, he comes — Asia's incarnate Light ! 
His step all majesty, his mien all grace, 
His eyes all calm, his face all mystery. 
And hark again, the god-mad people's voice- 
The thundering plaudits of a sea of souls : 
" Toung, Toung Taloung, Taloung ; Toung, Toung Taloung." 

Upon his throne Siam's imperial sire 

Sits mute and melancholy. Round his head, 

His murky brows besplendoring, a zone 

Of yellow gold girdles a world of thought. 

Surmounted with a regal diadem. 

And waxing heavy and still heavier, 

93 



94 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

So droops tlie sable sunflower, when tlie light, 
Toward which it fondly turns, goes out in night. 

Lift up thy head, O King ! Thy setting sun, 

Taking the westward way of Empire's star, 

Rises effulgent on a race of kings, — 

A sovereign people. Welcome, Toung Taloung; 

And may thy advent be the dawning morn 

Of a new era, on the western world ; — 

The wisdom of the Orient, the art — 

The artless art of living to enjoy 

Life's best, supremest gift — even itself 

Bring with thee, then, the light of tropic skies; 

The spirit of an Asian afternoon ; 

The dolce far niente of a day 

Whose gladness blooms in lily flowers, and lays 

The hush of peace upon the sons of men 

And meekness born of peace. 

And Siam, peace — 
Peace to thy fears, till Buddha re- appear 
Lighting tlie darkness of thy soul's eclipse. 
Wherein strange shapes appall thee ; as the wrath 
Of all the gods were leveled at thy sin. 
Which flood and famine yet may expiate. 
Our transport pleads for thee a first offense. 
And thy great sorrow writes it down the last — 
Forevermore the last. 



TOUNG TALOUNG. 95 

Hail, TouDg Taloung I 
Thou art our wonder, and our children's joy. 
Their little hands shall reach to touch thee, while 
Thy amiable eyes bespeak their love. 
Then, drawing back in counterfeited fear, 
Their merry laugh shall echo in thy soul. 
*• Taloung, Taloung! " — their childish lips shall cry , 
And thy deep- voiced bellow answer them : 
" I am Taloung — Taloung the Worshipful. 
" The Earth-god brought me forth ; upon my brow 
" The Fire-god set his seal ; the Water-god 
'' Upheld me, while the Wind-god wafted me 
" O'er many seas, — Taloung the Worshipful." 





MY LOVER TRUE. 

Y lover true a sliepherd is, 
Of lowlj sliepherds born. 
His cradle was the mountain glen ; 
His cry the echoing horn. 
The lambs and kids his playmates were ; 

The fold his nursery. 
I care not what the world says; 
He is all the world to me. 

The mountain's hight is on his brow ; 

The distance in his eye. 
He climbs to meet the morning star, 

And fades againsfthe sky. 
The world blow soils not his soul 

With its fair falsity. 
I care not what the world says ; 

He is all the world to me. 

And I am all the world to him, — 
It's compass, mete and bound, 

Whose heart, to overflowing, 
I fill with joy profound. 
96 



MY LOVER TRUE. 97 

His style is nature's majesty ; 

His manner fond and free. 
He cares not what the world says ; 

And he's all he world to me. 

Oh, would you woo my shepherd true 

To leave his native wild, 
And in your school of folly 

Become a wiser child ? 
To laugh or weep, as loveless lips 

Shall pipe the changing key? — 
To care for what the world says, 

Who is all tlie world to me? 

Then there you 11 find the happy lieart 

To laugh you all to scorn — 
My laughter-loving shepherd. 

Of lowly shepherds born. 
And here you'll find the heavy heart 

To weep indeed, when he 
Shall care for what the world says, 

Who is all the world to me. 




LOVE'S ANCHORITE. 

ERE my beloved dwelt. Knocking, I cried : 
Open to me, O thoa beloved one. 
And hark, — "- Who cometh there," her voice 
replied, 
"My love, or one unknown? " 

Then, my beloved answering, I prayed: 

' Tis I, ' tis I ] arise, open to me. 
"Alack, friend, there is not room," she said, 

" Within for • me ' and thee." 

Stricken and mute, my heart within me fell ; 

And, turning, to the wilderness I fled ; 
Communing with myself: — It would be well 

For thee, if thou wert dead. 
In this unknowingly I spake a truth ; 

And wandered weary and ahungered there. 
As they in whose afflicted souls the ruth 

Of sin is changed to prayer. 
Long days and weary nights I passed, the while, 

Upon my grief inflicting tortures vain. 

There was no other pang could this beguile. 

Then T returned again. 
98 



LOVE'S ANCHORITE. 99 

Here my beloved dwelt. Knocking, I cried: 

Open to me, thou beloved one. 
"Who cometh there," — 'twas the same voice 
replied, 

" My love, or one unknown ? " 

Too worn and weary for myself to sue, 
'Tis thou, 'tis thou^ I cried in ecstacy. 

And she : — " Come in, thou welcome love and true; 
I, too, am lost in thee." 





THE POET AND THE BIRD. 

AKK, — I hear the red -breast calling, 
In the wintry morn ; 
While the frozen tears are falling 
From the skies forlorn. 
Nature still looks back in sorrow : 

All my heart is sad. 
Hope is prodigal to borrow, 
And the bird is glad. 

Eobin, would thou hadst my reason — 

I thy happy song. 
Love and life are out of season, 

And regret is long. 
Winter's frost is but external : 

Life and youth must part ; — 
Age involve and freeze the vernal 

Passions of the heart. 

Endeth here the hymn of sadness. 

Disappointment, ruth ? 
Listen to the poet's madness: — 

In it there is truth, — 

300 



TEE POET AND THE BIRD. 



101 



As the bird of passage, flying, 

Soars to sunnier skies, 
Love shall plume his pinions, dying, 

And divinely rise 
To another life, whose portal 
Is the gate of the immortal 

Spirit's Paradise. 





FOREVER AND FOREVER. 

T was not with an idle love, 
My lost one, that I loved thee. 
The spirit of the gods above 
Was in the spell that moved me. 

I would have borne thee on my heart 
Forever and forever; 
Life of my life, from whom to part 
Had been that life to sever. 

And now I live, I know not why, 
Wounded, bereft, unhoping. 
The light has faded from the sky ; 
I wander blindly groping. 

Ah, night whose day was so divine I 
Ah, earth that once was heaven! 
Ah, pain that knows no anodyne ! 
The weary years are seven, 

Since last I slept the happy sleep 

Whose pillow was thy breast, love ; 

ISTot dreaming that these eyes would weep, 

With sight of thee unblest, love. 
102 



FOREVER AND FOREVER. 

But deep within the lees of life 
Tliere is nepenthe ; drink again. 
Unresting from the toil and strife, 
Forego the hope of happier men. 

Nor is the lost one wholly lost, 
Who leaves a ghost to haunt the j^-ears 
With love's true image ; though the cost 
Be life wept out in tears. 



103 





"NO." 

CORN not the passion, 
That burns in the eye ; 
That shames on the cheek, 
And implores in the sigh. 



Love kindles the fire 
That flushes the snow 
Above with red streams 
From the Hecla below. 

Desire newly born 

For life gasps ; its breath 

Is drawn in the sigh, 

Whose suppression were death. 

Oh, give back the sigh ! 
And, soft as the beam 
Of morningtide, lay 
The delirious dream 

Consuming the orbs 

That worship and weep. 

What tears thou wilt shed. 

If despair give them sleep ! 
104 



"i^O." 105 

Then, then thou wilt sigh, 
When sighs will be sobs, 
And pallor succeed 
To the heart's stifled throbs — 

" Come back ; I loved thee ; 
"Forgive that I said." 

Peace, peace ; get thee gone. 

Vex not, mock not the dead. 

" Come back, my darling I 
*' Come back to be wed." 

Hence, hence, where the feet 

Of Heaven's angels tread. 





THE AUTUMN FLIGHT. 

HE wizard Year has laid his wand 
On Summer's sunny skies, 
And changed the green of fruit and frond 
To Autumn's scarlet dyes. 
Of morning's chill upon the lea, 

And evening's dewy cloud 
The hours are weaving silently 
Her white and frosty shroud. 

The foes that filled her gentle ear 

With thunderous alarms, 
Have grounded each his flashing spear, 

And rest upon their arms. 
The blazon of their fiery wrath 

Hushed in the sad repose 
Of Summer, on her couch of death, 

Still o'er the landscape glows. 

Oh, wild will be the requiems. 

Tempestuous the dole. 

When round her wintry grave their hymns 

Are chanted for her soul ! 
106 



THE A UTU3IN FLIGHT. 107 

Then come, my heart, oh, come with me, 

Before that dismal night 
O'ertakes the fields so fair to see. 

And leaves them ghostly white ! 

Ah, wherefore wouldst thou linger? 

To a deserted shore 
The way-marks point their finger; 

And through the parlor-door 
No music warbles from the band; 

The birds themselves have flown; 
The billows, moaning on the strand, 

But leave thee more alone. 

The stars look down as fixed and calm, 

Where thronging footsteps pass; 
And flowers exhale as sweet a balm 

Beneath their skies of glass. 
The charm of Autumn in the air, 

The languorous Indian noon 
Will find thee in thy musings there, — 

Forsake thee, here, as soon. 

Then come, my heart, oh, come with me, 

Before that dismal night 
Descends upon the land and sea. 

And leaves them ghostly white! 



108 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

I hear a voice that bids me so. 

My love, and is it thou ? 
I lost thee in the long ago; 

If I should find thee now! 

No grasses grow along these ways, 

No blossoms wild and sweet ; 
No billows break in foamy sprays 

Eound my advancing feet. 
Yet here I kneel to kiss the pave 

My own love's feet have trod, 
And left it laughing like the wave, 

And greener than the sod. 

I passed along; I seemed alone; 

Nor face saw I, nor form. 
And here the autumnal summer shone 

As dreamy and as warm. 
When, soft, a voice that made me start. 

And kisses on my eyes! 
My love, my love against my heart — 

My love and paradise ! 

And have I found thee, then, my love? 

Kisses were all his word. 
Only his silent lips above 

My own fond lips were stirred. 



THE AUTUMN FLIGHT. 



109 



Till, "Come, my own; oh, come with me," 
He said, " before life's night 
" O'ertakes the fields so fair to see, 
" And leaves them gJiostly white ! " 





FJELDA. 

HEEE is a lake, a fond enchanting spot, 

A favorite of Nature, who with skill 

Has set it, like a diamond, within 

A bed of living emerald; and when 

Its crystal depth gives back the rainbow's hues, 

Or yet, by night, the galaxy of heaven. 

Behold thou there the signet-ring of God. 

Its banks are eloquent, tradition-voiced, 

Of one who trod their slopes, in beauty's form. 

As 't were an angel's, cast, and gathered there 

The pure, sweet violets, that, envying, saw 

In her blue eyes a lovelier brilliancy. 

And, laughing there upon the brink, she dipped. 

Her fairy feet in the white, feathery foam. 

While childhood broke for her its golden days, 

And bathed her being in a flood of joy. 

Do thou tread lightly, if it be that there 

Thy feet shall wander and thine eyes behold. 

The hoar old woods, that cast their shadows down, 

And hasten night's approach to their retreats, 

Are gnarled, and bent with age, and unto me 

There's less of beauty than religion there. 

110 



FJELDA 111 

The aged oaks twine their protecting arms 
Over a crooked pathway magical 
To lead you far within the leafy bowers, 
Until you come upon a purling stream, 
Spanned by a time-worn arch, throwing its spray 
Over the mossy banks, with, here and there, 
A recess garlanded with trailing flowers — 
The first born blossoms of the early spring. 

Morning, on heavenly wings, from her dark coach 

Majestic rose, her loosed locks of gold 

The eastern sky bestrewing. From the world 

Qaiet of labors, sunk in sweet repose. 

She gently drew the draperies of night. 

Her yellow radiance like a blessing falls 

Upon the hill, the vale, the wood, the lake, 

Which, in the glory tranced, seem worshipping, 

Eapt, in the presence of the king of day. 

Just as the priest, in dazzling robes arrayed, 

Forth from the vaulted sanctuary speaks 

A benediction upon the throng 

That, kneeling there in adoration, bow 

Before the Lord of light and King of kings. 

And as even there, sometimes, a thought profane 

Silently, quickly steals across the soul, 

Marring devotion's hush and holy hour. 

So, from an alcove of embowering trees, 



112 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS 

Kippling the bosom of the lake that seems 
A sea of molten silver, in the glow 
Of the fair morning splendor reveling 
Upon it, swiftly glides a light canoe, 
Obedient to a Northern maiden's will. 
She is Fjelda, whom the outward world, 
So full of light and life and love and joy, 
Mocks, and impels from misery to death. 
Bold and still bolder grow the liquid depths 
Below the prow of the young princess' bark, 
Speeding like a sprung arrow to its mark. 
Until they sink where, dark and fathomless. 
Their green abyss hides in mysterious caves. 
Just now a zephyr, playing balmy sweet, 
Fresh from the pure lips of the infant day. 
Caresses her wan cheek, and cools her brow, 
And kindly lifts therefrom the flowing tress 
Silken and sunny as the white swan's wing. 
" Great Odin, take thy child." — Fjelda prays, — 
" Spirit of good, to whom my people bow. 
" They call me mad, because I once did love; 
" They call me evil, for that once to me 
"A hope there was, a goddess had behooved, 
" Charming the future to reality. — 
"Now, hope-forsaken, love has turned to hate; 
"And I am weary of the life that pours 



FJELDA. 113 



"Across my spirit's harp-strings desolate, 
" The harmonies my loathing soul abhors. 
"Just as the mother lays her first-born down, 
"To quiet sleep and dreams, in fondest trust, 
" So, in this birchen cradle, let me drown — 
"Ashes to ashes give, and dust to dust. 
" But me — from the cold deep, oh ! let me rise 
"To thee, Allfather, and Valhalla's skies." 
She spoke ; and, with her weapon, in the side 
Of the frail boat she makes the fatal wound. 
Swiftly within the serpent waters glide, 
And lick and creep her prostrate form around; 
And in her ears hiss a strange, awful sound — 
Lullaby to her long and breathless sleep, — 
Whisperings of spirits from a vaster deep. 
Whose unseen hands bear to its unknown bed 
The precious casket of the life — the clay. 
Soon to be one among earth's countless dead, 
And pass, like them, from memory away. 
Pale and yet paler fades the hateful light ; 
Deeper and darker grows the friendly night, 
Until the soul, expelled her laboring breast, 
Enters Yalhalla and Valhalla's rest. 
8 




THE MAID OF ROME. 
I. 

HE towers of Eome rise tall and fair 
In the Italian sunset's glow ; 
The bells of Rome chime on the air, 
Ringing, swinging, to and fro ; 

Calling to the place of prayer 

Hearts to be beguiled of care, 

Hearts whose burden of despair 

Is of all tlie heaviest one. 

From his torch the king of day, 

Departing, flings a lingering ray 

Of salutation to the queen 

Who rises on his late demsne, 

Luna of the Golden Horn — 

Luna, queen of heaven born. 

She, before another morn, 

Will have passed in regal state 

To her empire's western gate; 

And before her majesty 

Every star must veiled be ; 

Proving thus its fealty 

To her high command ; 
114 



THE MAID OF R03IE. m 

Save indeed the noble few 
Of her royal retinue, 
Gallant sabjects, tried and true, 
Men of her right hand ; 
Princes, that have ever shone 
Nearest to their sovereign's throne, — 
Lords of empires all their own, 
Eealms that lie beyond the Sun. 

II. 

Like a dirge the holy sound 
Falls upon the startled ear 
Of the guilty captive bound 
In his lonely dungeon near — 
Echo of his ghostly fear. 
For to him it is a knell, 
And it speaks to him of hell, 
Rousing fears he fain would quell. 
For when chimes again shall call, 
And the sacred shadows fall 
On St. Angel's prison wall. 
Where will be the prisoner then ? 
Ask the priest that shrives his soul, 
Ask the prophet's flying scroll. 
Ask the winds, or ask the sea, 
Ask ye them, but ask not me ; 
For of me ye ask in vain. 



116 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

III. 

Borne afar the hallowed strain 
Reaches to the couch of pain, 
Where the saint and sufferer 
Feels the toucli of death. 
Monitor of hope and joy, 
Soothing, sweet, without alloy; 
From his God a whisperer. 
Like a seraph's breath, 
It will waft his spirit on 
When with earthly trials done, 
When life's victory be won. 
To the heavenly rest. 

lY. 

In the dim, religious aisle 
Penitents are bowed in prayer. 
Through St. Peter's massive pile 
Miserere's plaintive air 
Soft re-echoes, where the while 
Curving arch and column rare 
Throw fantastic, spectral shades; 
And the Virgin Mother's smile 
Leaves a benediction there, 
And the fainting suppliant aids. 



THE MAID OF ROME. 117 

Weary souls, believing pray — 

Low on the cold pavement kneel. 

What proud pharisee shall say 

Ye no heaven-sent sorrow feel ! 

What presuming scribe declare 

Your beads a mockery and snare, 

Or your burden of emotion 

But the semblance of devotion ! 

They that pray are they that feel 

What speaking lips reveal. 

Prayer is not the eloquence 

That appealeth to the sense, — 

Not the rounded utterance 

Of a pious form ; 

But the language of the soul; 

Of its voiceful speech the whole ; 

As the sea, whose beating roll, 

Pulsing to the tidal power 

Of the moon's meridian hour. 

Sounds along the shore j 

Or, as when the heaving swell, 

Driven before the tempest's hell. 

All its mighty thunderings tell 

Of the distant storm ; 

And when winds have spent their force, 

Surges then in accents hoarse, 



118 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

Full of pity and remorse, 
O'er the stranded sailor's corse 
Grieving, wail and roar. 

Y. 

There before the holy shrine 
Of the holier Babe Divine, 
While devotion pours its tide 
Through the arches high and wide;- 
Tide of peace whose heavenly flow 
Soothes all sorrow, drowns all woe, 
For the soul whose faith can rise 
On the ascending symphonies, — 
For the sinner who can hear 
. That unto the outward ear 
Which the priestly lips proclaim — 
Pardon in the Holy Name; — 
Prostrate there a heart of sighs 
In its dark profundities, 
Like the sea beneath the reef 
Of Scylla, rages with its grief. 
Could its outward voice be heard, 
Not a tongue of flesh were there, 
Acolyte and monk and prior, 
Priest and bishop, lord and 'squire. 
Congregation all and choir, — 



TEE MAID OF ROME. 119 

Not an echoing vault on high, 
Where the columns nieet the sky, 
But would give an answering cry ; 
By its piteous anguish stirred, 
By the pathos of its prayer. 

YI. 

' Tis not manhood wrestles so 

With the devil of its woe. 

' Tis not he, whose iron will, 

Taught by a long life of sin 

How to hush the -tongues within. 

Can command them, " Peace, be still." — 

Not the soul that, forced to fly 

Itself before the dreadful cry 

Of guilt, when o'er its \)yqj it gloats, 

Is fain to choke the noisy throats 

Cerberian with the miry soil 

That paves Perdition. Vain the foil. 

But ' tis tender girlhood there, 

In that agony of prayer ; 

Gentle as the gentle fawn. 

Modest as the blushing dawn. 

And when yonder moon was young, 

Pare as the supernal light 

From the torches of the night 

Through the azure spaces flung; 



120 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

Innocent as the white lawn 
Eound her girlish temples drawn 
Wben, in confirmation's hour 
Kneeling at the throne of grace, 
Tears for Christ bedewed her face, 
Holy hands being laid thereon 
For the Spirit's benison ; 
Sacrament of ghostly power. 
Now the vulture of remorse 
Preys upon the tortured corse 
Of her maiden purity 
With a dire rapacity. 
Such the ghouls that upward flit, 
When funereal lights are lit ; 
To sepulchral banquets sped — 
Fiends that fatten on the dead. 

VII. 

The pealing blasts no longer blow ; 
A thousand echoing pipes are still. 
The tuneful strains no longer flow, — • 
The tuneful, tearful strains that fill 
The " Miserere " ; and has ceased 
The voice of mediating priest. 
The aisles are vacant ; and once more 
The sacred sanctuary door 



THE MAID OF E03IE. 121 

Is closed upon the Jesu's ghost, 
Incarnate of the holy host. 
One worshipper cloth there remain, — 
She that in the supremest pain 
Of spirit travailed. Now her throes 
Are ended — ended all her woes. 
Before the altar of that place 
Where Mary reigns the queen of grace, 
Her form upon the floor of stone 
Extended lies ; — the soul has flown. 
The Virgin Mother saw the grief 
That wrestled with high heaven there 
In all the potency of prayer, 
Like Jacob when he fought amain 
The Angel on Penuel's plain. 
And gave the penitent relief. 
Descending from her starry throne. 
Above, around her presence shone, 
And lighted up her mystic shrine 
With mercy's radiance divine. 
Upon the sufferer's heart the spell 
Of Mary's love benignant fell. 
And lifted thence the infernal pall 
That sin had wrapt her soul withal — 
The infernal pall of hell and death. 
As when the dazzling morning light 



122 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

Breaks on the valley where the night 
Has left its dank and poisonous breath, 
The miasmatic vapors rise, 
And the pure lake reflects the skies. 

VIII. 

While thus the ecstacy of peace 

Fills every sense with sweet surcease 

Of sorrow and of agony ; 

And the sore spirit knows its wound 

The heavenly healing to have found 

Of Christ's forgiving sympathy, 

While thus, lo! at that shrine of tears 

The blessed face itself appears, — 

Vision of beatific love, 

And like a winged seraph moves 

Before the suppliant, and proves 

Its presence by a voice, and kiss, 

Foretaste of the eternal bliss. 

Then all unconsciously, as when 

The sleeper wakes and sleeps again, 

This watcher at the gate of heaven 

Sinks 'neath the rapt oblivion 

Which, cast from Mary's blessed glances, 

Her sight and sense and soul entrances ; 



THE 3TAID OF ROME. 123 

Until her limbs forget tbej kneel, 
Until her lips forego their voice, 
Until lier brain begins to reel, 
Until her senses cease to feel, 
Until of life she has no choice ; 
Until she sinks, faints, falls, — until 
Her pulse and heart and life are still. 

IX. 
As when the burning orb of day, 
Ascending high and ever higher, 
Shining with an in tenser ray 
Upon some flickering hearth-stone fire, 
Quenches in its own heat the spark. 
And leaves the embers cold and dark : 
So Mary's glorious mother soul 
Drew that sad life unto her own ; 
And left the unblest half of its whole 
Dead, on the consecrated stone. 





THE WRECK. 

WILL be a fearful night. 

Across the deep, 

Pitiless in their flight, 

The wild winds sweep. 

The billows, flinging high 

Incense of spray, 

Invoke the answering sky. 

The murky wrack, 

As ' twere a cerement 

Of spectral shrouds 

Woven of clouds, 

Comes up the firmament. 

The last, cold ray 

OF a November day 

Fades fast, and dies away. 

Upon the track 

Of their affrighted prey the sea-hounds growl ; 

As when the pack, 

Chasing the fugitive, do yell and bay. 

Nor would they pause, if so it were to be 

The safety oF a freighted argosy 

And all on board, for whom the prayers and fears 

Of wives and loved ones agonize in tears. 

124 



THE WRECK. 125 

Across the wave 

No beacon gleams, 

To warn the sailor of an unknown grave ; 

To cheer, to guide and save, 

No star-light beams ; 

While in the gloam, 

Like fasted wolves that scent 

The night-belated wanderer from the fold, 

And tell unto the winds their fierce desires 

In many a long-drawn howl ; — 

Or ghouls that, ill-content. 

Swarm up from hell to vex the dead man's mould 

With midnight carnivals, while nether fires 

Purge the unshriven soul. 

Lashed into foam, 

The furious waters fiendish revels hold. 

Hungry for spoil, mad for the writhing prey — 

For manhood brave and beauty fair as day. 

And all the wealth of gems and diamonds 

And purple robes and tapestries, that comes 

From Asia's treasuries and Persia's looms, — 

Tiiese for tlie walls 

Of palace halls, 

Or for the regal feet of peers to press ; — 

Those, haughty forms imperial to caress — 

Patrician youth and statelv Saxon blondes ; 



126 LYBICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

And those in many a queenly tress to shine, 

Or deck a lovely arm of mould divine — 

An arm that Phidias might in vain contest, 

Of so unwonted beauty 'twere possessed ; 

Or stud a lovelier bosom white as snow — 

Save that cerulean veins their coursings show — 

In which the Graces seem yet more to vie ; 

Where Love in nuptial slumbers fain would lie, 

A captive to its charms and downiness, 

A votary at that shrine of sweet redress — 

The due reward of honor's chivalry. 

But Ocean has the right to ask lier own ; 

Within whose womb grew the pure pearly stone, 

And from whose breast distilled the gentle rains 

That nourish, on the far-off Orient plains, 

The fruitful flocks 

Of silken locks. 

Which the rustic shepherds to the brookside bring, 

AVhen Summer weaves her garlands for the new made 

grave of Spring. 
And if the jewel, whose exhaustless light 
Plays round the brow empowered with regal might, 
Has from the brighter sun its brilliancy, 
Yet is it next of kin, sea, to thee I 
Alas, for the fell stroke ! 
Alas, for all the strength of bolted oak. 



THE WRECK. 127 

And all the hidden strength of wroughten ropes, 

And wo to human hopes ! 

The ship that bears her burden to the west, — 

Her winding sheet will be the billow's crest ; 

Her grave, the sunken reef; her funeral dirge, 

The full deep bass of the storm-troubled surge. 

Her bulk of costly draperies will be 

A mocking pall for the humanity 

Sleeping below, upon its coral bed, 

Till immortality shall call the dead. 

And clothe the skeleton whose dreamless head 

Were ghastlier for the lapidary's skill 

Sunk in the sockets eyes were wont to fill, — 

Piercing the dark of deep, mysterious caves, 

Whose floors the wealth of all the Orient paves. 

O life, the lips that will expire to-night ! — 

The visions that will vanish, fond and bright ! 

death, the forms thy cold embrace will chill. 

Which now the blushing crimson loves to thrill I 

How will thy ghostly finger lift that veil 

Before whose revelation strong men quail ! 

Awake, bewildered dreamer, from the sleep 

In which th}^ tearless eyelids fain would weep. — 

Eouse from the horror of the imagery 

'l^hat checks thy breath and makes thy senses shiver, 

Intenser than the last reality, 



128 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

The weird foreboding of the Stjgian river. 

Wipe from thy brow the clammy dews distilled ' 

B}^ racking fancies that thy brain have filled. 

Arise, stern Fate is calling unto thee; 

Awful her wings brook the nocturnal sea, 

As round thy vessel, like a bird of prey, 

Wheeling her flight she croaks her dismal lay. 

The echo lingers in the winds, that shriek 

Like spirits lost, striving in vain to wreak 

Their vengeance on the maddened waves that sweep 

Tumultuous the bosom of the deep. 

Lo, here it comes — 

Thy Destiny ! 

Nor question why. 

Trust thou in God. 

His potent rod, 

If so He will, 

The mighty elements can still. 

What if thy last long hour be near? 

Gird up thy loins, — not, like a slave,] 

Crouch down with fear. 

From it thou mayest not fly ; 

Then wherefore shouldest have 

Such dread to die ? 

Weakling! canst thou disarm 

The fury of the storm? 



THE WRECK. 129 

Or, when the deathly waves thy limbs shall clasp, 

II ow canst thou, mortal, break their subtle grasp? 

Alas, for thee ! for thou shalt know 

How much of terror and of wo 

A single moment can inspire, 

And prophesy unutterable ; 

When, from his paradise of dreams 

Diflfase of morning's emerald beams, 

Sleep startles at the roar 

Of breakers on a desert shore, — 

Ocean's reveille drums, 

Calling to conflict dire ; 

To conflict with a foe 

Invulnerable, 

Unmerciful, 

Insatiable. 

The long ship staggering strikes, 

With reeling shocks. 

Upon the rocks. 

The timbers stout and iron spikes. 

Unequal to the strains 

Of the gigantic giantess 

Groaning in labor's pains. 

Heaving in mortal throes, 

Writhe and complain ; 

Strong to endure on the tempestuous main 

9 



130 LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS. 

Againsfc the sea alone ; 

Weak to resist the bowlder's stunning blows 

And the reef-covered strand 

With many a carcass strown — 

Oak-ribbed and bleaching on the sand. 

Once noble hulls were they 

Spurning the land, 

Eeveling in storm and spray. 

Ah, what a sense of misery is here, 

The ordeal of despair ! 

How blanched, how wild with dumb dismay appear 

Its victims cowering there, 

Pressing with weary feet the frozen deck ! 

O heaven, is this their recompense who yearn 

To fill brimful of happiness 

Their life's deceptive urn ? 

On that eventful morn. 

How throbbing hearts, how faltering accents told 

Of loves and friendships weightier than gold ! 

How doubt shrank back ! How faith soared high and 

bright ! 
How false to hope ambition gave its plight! 
How loving lips wooed loving lips again I 
How ties of birtli bound dear ones closer, when 
Forth from her pier the heavy ship swung out. 
And spread her wings to many a farewell shout I 



THE WRECK. 131 

O ye forlorn ! 

O wretched born ! 

O ye by visions of sweet home to-night 

Tortured and worn ! 

Not long have ye to wait 

To pass the crystal gate 

That closes aye on earth's last agonies ; — 

Not long to abide 

The final summons death delivers wreck. 

Lo, changed in likeness to the tide, 

The Spectre comes to claim his bride! 

How lavishly he laves her side ! 

How passionate upon her breast 

He throws his quivering form ! 

And look ! a three-fold breaker now, 

Towering amain above the prow, 

Of might invincible possessed — 

Terror wrought into storm ! 

From stem to stern the sickening tremor flies. 

Dying the monster lifts herself in air, — 

'Tis the last effort ; — down, to fragments down, 

Crashing, she settles on the rocky bed. 

And trembling hope forevermore has flown ; 

And oh, for aye the fond good-bye is said ; 

And heaven has heard the last, beseeching prayer. 

And now the embrace, the cr}^, the awful leap. 

The struggle brief, the silence, and the sleep. 



^>^ ^V^ 




